


fold the map and bend the gap

by hunk



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Gen, Gunshot Wounds, M/M, POV First Person, best friends trying not to kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-03
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-28 20:57:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8462716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hunk/pseuds/hunk
Summary: and i tow the word 'companion'.
  They've known all this for a while, now.





	

**Author's Note:**

> thanks spotify and bon iver [for](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9utVR5Q67_k) the title and summary thing

Preambles on the job overlooked, he knows how to get to the point. Not a way with words but with the trigger, more like. Now, people call me a realist, and I know for sure I'm not really in the line of things, so what I say doesn't have the most weight - but he gets pretty much all of them. Paltry few missed. Continuing, you could say the odds of that paltry few getting away without a mark is absolutely nothing. No odds. Thinking a mortal could get away from that weaponpoint scot free is like thinking Brexit wasn't fucking Britain's own fault. Not that we're getting into politics here. Just a matter of analogy.

The politics is all Tsukishima.

Although, come on. Brexit. Nobody's on the fence about that, kids. Not after it up and _happened_. Tanaka stayed up all night staring at his phone, typing, reading, keeping me awake with his outraged rundown on what the fuck was going to happen to Europe.

Right now, I'm standing next to him. It's in the contract to stand next to him - or behind, or ahead, or at three o'clock - so long as my body's alive and in close premises. I'm getting paid for it. Tiring, as you could imagine, but not tiresome. And no, I'm not a bodyguard. I'm a decoy, illiterate when it comes to weaponry, handy. Not a genius, just smart. Not the best out there, but still pretty good.

I'm standing next to him, a head shorter and five years on still annoyed about that. I look back and our shadows stretch out and meld on the floor of the roof, brown against grey concrete that's turned yellowish with the sunlight.

"Eyes on the prize," he's saying now, and I roll my shoulder joints, look back at the crowds milling on the street below.

"Just the elbow," I remind him. "Don't use that cannon thing, God, you looking to blow his arm off?"

"Maybe his head," Tsukishima mutters, putting it down and reaching for a handgun. "Thanks for reminding. All these numbers and names are gonna fuck me over one day. Hate freelancing."

Like I said, I'm pretty good at this. "Leave me some bucks," I joke, but it's dry and humorless and both of us know it.

"Of course," he says, and it's dry and humorless and I want to think that's all there is to it. But he looks over his shoulder at me and doesn't smile, looks like he means it. So I do smile, like I didn't mean it, and he grins before turning back. "Look, there he is. Warm side of eighty, man, this feels like roadkill."

"It's plastic surgery," I suggest.

Both of us have our gazes fixed on him now, but I can feel the witheration coming off him in waves. And I _am_ smart, so I do happen to coin some fucking words.

"That's for looking younger." I can tell he's squinting by the sound of his voice. It drawls a little and one end of his mouth curves out more than the other. And his back's tensing up.

"Temporary," I insist, and my heart beats just normal as he pulls the trigger.

Every time I hear the shot I think of something different. This time I think about when we didn't curse this much. When we had squeaky clean mouths and thought we'd never get as high as we have. Never fuck around like we've managed to since. Never end a life or talk seriously about killing ourselves in the middle of the night, in the evening, piss drunk at three in the afternoon. When we used to stand on a roof to birdwatch, or count the stars, and Tsukki would beat me at naming every constellation and I'd be so perilously close to kissing him to make up for it.

Man. This again. The way I see it, the bullet disappears in his skin and space seems to rip apart the exact same second. I don't get to see if it was just a prosthetic mask and some good acting of bad posture on a centenarian cane because: I wouldn't have been able to even if I wanted, and Tsukishima pulls me down quick - no, quicker than a shot. I should know how fast that means. I do.

I tuck him behind me and he folds me into him as always, lying in wait and out of regular sight, and I hear him breathing and think about how all the blood must be pumping through him right now, how his ears must be red underneath the cap and how his hands are shaking as they link across my waist.

It's always the same.

(I want to kiss him to make up for it.)

Now I think if we've ever really changed.

**Author's Note:**

> i have no intentions and as such DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON  
> but hey  
> hey hey  
> hi  
> hello


End file.
